Prioritizing Your Wedding Budget
Photo By Hazel Lining Photography
You’ve probably been told or have seen somewhere along the way while planning your wedding, that prioritizing your budget is super important. Well, that’s because it’s absolutely true! In fact, it’s one of the 1st things I tell my couples to do once they start the wedding planning process.
Why is prioritizing your budget so important? Well, weddings can cost quite a bit of money and your budget can get away from you very quickly. It’s very easy to suffer from “shiny object syndrome” while wedding planning and sometimes those shiny objects can cost big bucks. So, it’s important to sit down with your partner and decide what things are most important to the two of your when it comes to your wedding.
This looks different for every couple because everyone’s priorities are different. Make it a fun activity to do together! Grab some paper and some pens and each of you write down your top 3 most important elements of your wedding day. After marrying each other, of course. Then, read them outload to each other. Where do you match up? If you match up on at least 1 item, those are your highest priority items. Then take the remaining items on the list and discuss together the importance of each. Make yourself a list of items 1-5, number 1 being the absolute most important/non negotiable item for both of you and number 5 being the least important out of your listed items. For example, you may have both decided that food was the most important item followed by music, photos, flowers and dress. This will give you a great place to start and provides you with a jumping off point for were to allocate the bulk of your budget.
From here you will be able to breakdown your overall wedding budget into categories such as Food/Beverage, Attire, Photo/Video, Floral & Décor, Band/DJ, etc. Allocate the bulk of your budget to your number 1-3 priorities and then divide up the remaining balance among the other categories. This will give you a better idea of what funds you have available for each part of your wedding day.
If you are planning your wedding with the financial help and input of someone else as well, such as your parents, this might look a little different. You can still apply the same ideas though. Include your parents in the priorities listing. Everyone gets a paper and a pen and gets to list priorities 1-3. Talk through the priorities together and decide as a team what items are most important to all of you. Then go from there. Chances are that some of your priorities will likely match up with some of their priorities.
It’s important to know what yours and your partner’s priorities are and what your budget is before you start reaching out to vendors. You want to have a realistic idea of what funds you have available when you are starting your vendor search. That way, you can look for vendors who are within your budget and can still accommodate your needs and your style without wasting your time looking through tons of different vendors with tons of different price points.
Now that you know what your priority’s are, it will make wedding planning and searching for your vendors a whole lot easier. You got this! And, if this sounds like a lot and something you don’t want to even deal with, trust me, I get it. Reach out to a Wedding Planner. We do this kind of thing all the time and we can help make the budget planning a heck of a lot less stressful. :)
Happy Planning!
Love,
Naticia
